Something happened during my sleepless night at the Knights Inn. My back, right where I hurt it in China during my stairs pratfall, exploded into pain. It felt, and I’ve made this reference before, like the voodoo doll in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR51CavZxbc&sns=em
Somebody was sticking a pin right into my back and wiggling it around. And it’s pretty much all the time but there’s a sharper pain when I take a deep breath…or cough… or blow my nose. It’s a chronic pain.
It being chronic, it hurt whether I was supine in the hotel room, sitting in my car, or ready to run. So all things being equal, it didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do, it was going to hurt. So I chose to run.
The five AM early start afforded quick catchups with some Mainly Maraton All-Stars who had come out for this inaugural series. Cathy and Clyde were there. Rand. Vincent Ma. Deb and Dee Dee. David “Foxy” Bailey had once again made the trek across the pond from the U.K. And many more. I was so under the weather though I wasn’t much in a chatty mood but I was glad to see everybody. And George was there, still providing camera and course support after the sale of the company to Jesse and Daniel Rueckert.
And as the course description was gone over from atop a folding ladder, newbies welcomed and cheered, milestone achievements and birthdays celebrated, I was reminded of the family atmosphere that persists amongst the MM crew. And as I would soon discover, though there’d been a change in ownership, the races still featured the patented Clint Burleson measurements, namely the courses were ALWAYS long.
By starting at 5 am we were going to avoid some heat. It was low 60s and kinda cool in the shadow of the Pendleton Rodeo stands. My back was killing me, I could barely breathe and when I did my back hurt even more. This is my idea of fun?
I ran the first seven or eight laps with Foxy David. He’s looking to up his ultra counts so planned on doing a marathon one day and a 50k the second in each of the three states of this six day series. This is his idea of fun. It’s a weird, wonderful bunch of folks in this group.
He also filled me in on another British runner who is usually at these events. Michael, a great guy and fast runner who got faster every day of a series, decided last October he was done with running. He just didn’t find it fun anymore. David mentioned Michael stopped at 392 lifetime marathons and he fully expected him to come back to round it out to 400, especially given Michael’s a maths guy. But so far, he hasn’t run a day since. Things change. As I wheezed through the miles I wondered if perhaps I’d be joining the ranks of used to run runners soon.
But I persisted. The sun rose and the temperatures started to climb. It would be hot before too long but I was still hoping to finish before then.
Somewhere around mile 16 I broke away from David and just kept trying to keep moving forward. I kept a fairly consistent pace and tried to just focus on one step in front of the other, step by step, step by step….
In the end, I finished with a 3:55. I felt terrible… but really not any worse than I did at 4:55 am. All things being equal then, no harm, no foul in running, right?
I detoured on my way back to the hotel and picked up some supplies I forgot to pack for this trip.
I’m hoping to grab a nap before too long but thought I’d first wander around town and grab some lunch. I passed this place… felt like I should return there.
